For eight months I’ve stood at that counter and quietly done my job, and on my breaks and slow afternoons I’ve pulled things up. Wire transfers. Account histories. The dates, the amounts, the routing numbers.

And the shell companies. That was the part that turned my stomach, because there were two little companies he set up that don’t make a thing and don’t sell a thing, they just exist to swallow money. My money, going in one side and coming out clean on the other. I’m telling you, the trail he left is so plain a first-year law student could read it. He thought he was clever. He was just lazy.

I started keeping a file. Printing what I could legally lay hands on, flagging it, writing little notes in the margins. It grew and grew. A hundred and forty-seven pages now. It lives in a folder in my purse and I take it home every single night because I don’t trust it out of my sight.

He came in once, back in February. Walked right up to my window, set down a deposit slip, and never once raised his eyes to my face. “Just this,” he said, and slid it across. His wedding ring tapped the counter, that same ring I watched Diane put on his finger. I took his slip and I processed his deposit and I said, “Have a good day, sir,” and he grunted and walked out. He handled his account with the very woman he robbed, and he didn’t know it. I went in the bathroom after and held onto the sink for a minute. Not crying. Just steadying.

So that brings us to today. My last day. I gave my notice last week, all smiles, cake in the break room and everything.

The DA’s office is eleven minutes from here, I checked. And Wayne is coming in at three to make a deposit, because he’s a creature of habit, and habit is what’s going to finish him.

It’s 2:51 now. I’ve been staring at this file and thinking about Mama and those reused tea bags. And I’ve decided. I’m not walking out early. I’m going to stand at my window one more time, and I’m going to let him slide that slip across to me, and this time, before he turns to leave, I’m going to say his name.

He just came through the door. Same as always, eyes down, phone in his hand. He’s getting in my line. There’s two people ahead of him.

Now he’s at my window. He sets down the slip. “Just depositing this,” he says, not looking up, same as February. I take it. My hands are steady now, would you believe it. I run it through. I slide his receipt back across the counter. And then I say it, quiet, just for him.

“Wayne. Look at me.”